Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
“Pope Declares No Hell?”
So ran the riveting headline on the Drudge Report of Holy Thursday.
Drudge quoted this exchange, published in La Repubblica, between Pope Francis and his atheist friend, journalist Eugenio Scalfari.
Scalfari: “What about bad souls? Where are they punished?”
Bad souls “are not punished,” Pope Francis is quoted, “those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”
On the first Holy Thursday, Judas betrayed Christ. And of Judas the Lord said, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed; it were better for him if that man had never been born.”
Did the soul of Judas, and those of the monstrous evildoers of history, “just fade away,” as General MacArthur said of old soldiers? If there is no hell, is not the greatest deterrent to the worst of sins removed?
What did Christ die on the cross to save us from?
If Francis made such a statement, it would be rank heresy.
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Had the pope been speaking ex cathedra, as the vicar of Christ on earth, he would be contradicting 2,000 years of Catholic doctrine, rooted in the teachings of Christ himself. He would be calling into question papal infallibility, as defined in 1870 by the Vatican Council of Pius IX.
Questions would arise as to whether Francis is a true pope.
The Vatican swiftly issued a statement saying the pope had had a private conversation, not a formal interview, with his friend Scalfari.
The Vatican added: “The textual words pronounced by the pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.”
Sorry, but this will not do. This does not answer the questions the pope raised in his chat. Does hell exist? Are souls that die in mortal sin damned to hell for all eternity? Does the pope accept this belief? Is this still the infallible teaching of the Roman Catholic Church?
However one may applaud Francis’ stance on social justice, on matters of faith and morals he has called defined doctrine into question and created confusion throughout the Church he heads.
In his letter Amoris Laetitia, “The Joy of Love,” the pope seemed to give approval to the receiving of Holy Communion by divorced and remarried Catholics, whose previous marriages had not been annulled, and whom the Church holds to be living in adultery.
Relying on the pope’s letter, German bishops have begun to authorize the distribution of Communion to divorced and remarried couples.
Cardinal Gerhard Muller, former prefect of the Vatican office for the Doctrine of the Faith, the position once held by Pope Benedict XVI, says this contradicts Catholic doctrine as enunciated by Pope John Paul II.
Said Cardinal Muller, “No power in heaven or on earth, neither an angel nor the pope, not a council, nor a law of the bishops has the faculty to change it.”
Four cardinals, including Raymond Burke of the United States, in a formal letter, asked the pope to clarify Amoris Laetitia. The pope did not, nor has he addressed the cardinals’ concerns.
Indeed, when asked early in his papacy about the immorality of homosexuality, the pope parried the question, “Who am I to judge?”
But if not thee, who? Is not the judging of right and wrong part of the job description?
Nor is it only in the realm of doctrine that the pope has sown confusion among the faithful.
To legalize the underground Catholic Church in China, the pope and the Vatican have agreed to ask Catholic bishops to stand aside for bishops approved by the Communist Party that seeks tighter control of Christian faiths.
The Vatican has also agreed to approve the consecration of a bishop named by Beijing, whom Rome previously regarded as illegitimate.
The capitulation is necessary for the Catholic Church in China to survive and prosper, argues the Vatican. But what kind of church will it become, asks retired Archbishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong.
The Vatican is “selling out” the Church in China, says the archbishop: “Some say that all the effort to reach an agreement is to avoid the ecclesial schism. How ridiculous! The schism is there, in the Independent Church!”
Archbishop Zen concedes his criticism of the Communist Party and the Vatican’s diplomatic efforts are causing problems in closing the rift between the underground Church and the Communist Party-sanctioned church, but makes no apology: “Am I the major obstacle in the process of reaching a deal between the Vatican and China? If that is a bad deal, I would be more than happy to be the obstacle.”
There is a division inside Catholicism that is widening, between a Third World and traditional church that are growing, and a mainstream Church in Europe and here that is taking on aspects of the Anglican Church of the 20th century.
And how did that turn out, Your Holiness?
Happy Easter!
So the pope believes Christ was crucified for nothing ,,,,,,,,?
That is basically the message. Someone else commented that he just invalidated the Catholic church. I would say he invalidated Christianity in general. He may as well take off his robes and go back to Argentina. The Vatican City can go away as well. Give all that money and treasure to the poor if he really believes his own message about social justice. That will never happen because he is more than a hypocrite. He is an evil bastard.
Oh no, the greatest mass learned collective hallucination is fractured. Might just have to live with the physical world. If its not hell down there, then it must be abiotic oil. We are saved!
The various pronouncements of this “pope” are not necessarily the root of the problem. What he says can be twisted and interpreted by anyone to mean most anything that serves their agenda. The fundamental issue is that the Catholic Church is now led by a man who allows the things he says, with regard to Doctrine and Tradition, to be open to interpretation at all.
Certainty is of God. Confusion is of the Devil. This man makes pronouncements that sow confusion and allow for malleability in the interpretation of teachings that absolutely do not allow any sort of flexibility. He has not the power to change the revealed truth of Christ, yet he makes statements that lead people to believe that revealed truth is relative. That is the core of the problem and the proof that Bergoglio is an anti-pope.
If, indeed, he did deny the existence of hell by substituting the “annihilation of souls” for eternal punishment, then the ultimate obstacle to relativism is removed and the floodgates of evil are opened.The Catholic Church is currently led by a heretic.
Seems like the stakes just got raised vis-a-vis believers vs non-believers.
The idea of a forgiving God seems kind of invalidated.
And the idea of sin seems invalidated.
And Jesus seems invalidated.
What, exactly, is left of the Catholic faith if you subtract Hell, and, by assumption, Satan from it?
Eternal Punishment is against the Law.
http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?95865-Eternal-Punishment-is-Against-The-Law&highlight=Eternal+punishment
This pope was installed by evil forces with the objective of destroying Christian Western Civilization and the people who built this Civilization. The Christian Church is just one more front, along with mass immigration from the third world, in this war that is being waged against the European people. The Holy Catholic Church is now the Satanic Catholic Church led by a heretic. Just about all Christian Churches have been infiltrated and corrupted by Satanic globalists, central bankers and war mongers. These are dark days where truth itself is under attack.
This Pope was a Liberation Theologist in South America before going to Rome.In other words he was already an apostate of the Marxist communist Tradition. He is an Anti -Christ in every sense.
I don’t know about you all, but I’m gathering up a bunch of stones. Let’s bloody the bastard in God’s name.
An agitated or slightly excited individual is more active. A more active person moves about and spends money. Merican retailers want you to spend more money, therefore keeping you agitated is good for the economy. Who is feeding us all this bullshit and why? Truth? Fuck me. Less than 5% of everything you read will fall into that category. It’s actions, not words that reveal and expose. Maybe we should follow the money.
Next up from Francis and club…….”There is no devil”.
It seems like a safe assumption if the Commie shitbird is right.
And if there is no Hell, how did we miss that for the last couple thousand years?
If there’s no devil, are there fallen angels?
If there are no fallen angels, are there angels?]
If there aren’t angels, is there a God?
And if there’s no God, what have we been beating ourselves up over for the last couple thousand years?
And what were we donating all that money for?
And why do churches get tax-exempt status?
It’s like you start pulling at one thread and the whole sweater disintegrates.
Who cares?
If you’re not Catholic, you’re probably smart enough to ignore this man’s stupid pronouncements.
If you are Catholic, and you’re not smart enough to ignore this man’s stupid pronouncements, you might as well go home and color.
The Red Pope is no pope. The Church has really fucked it all up, going from Jan Pavel, the Good Pope, to the Nazi Pope, and then the Red Pope. What’s next?
I have to give credit to the Commie Pope for proving there’s no such thing as “infallible” and the teachings of the Catholic church are, in fact, impeachable. If Catholics finally wake up to the fact they don’t need the Papists to talk to God, more the better for them.
People, have we not moved beyond punishment? Will we only avoid evil because there’s a hell if we don’t? Millennia on the planet and you still insist there be punishment as the only deterrent to doing good?
It’s a remarkable thing that our overlords thought enough of us to bless us with the truth of Jesus’ words; and a history of our planet AND the nature and attributes of God.
Do you really believe that a loving God would consign his erring children to everlasting suffering?
You people who NEED a hell to exist to conform to your deeply flawed understanding of the Universal Father should just stop and ponder… does that really make sense! And when you see that it doesn’t, make the knowledge of Truth your goal. And realize that ALL religions are man-made to one extent or another. And know that revelation is both epochal and personal, and personal means you.
No reason, no consequence, … no way.
Coming from nothing and going toward/into nothing[ness] is the life of an animal, not of a MAN.
With no reasoning there is nothing to bring harmony, peace and love between us, only the desire of possession, exploitation, killing for any reason…
Anyway, since the Papacy left the Christianity, it was a very clear understanding of the failure of faith in demonology.
Back, in opposition, the Orthodoxy is still defending (not very active, sadly) the Word, is mostly express the Truth.
The one of the Elders not the stupid, heretical writings that many signed in Crete, at a meeting as a false Synod reunion.
It appears that Pope Francis has embraced some of the beliefs of Judaism: That there is no hell but evil is the absence of G-d. That sinful souls get bashed from the Tree of Life. And there cannot be a devil, after all, how could a devil compete with the almighty G-d? Perhaps the Moshiach is not far off, when the Christians and Jews will no longer have any differences to argue about. Happy Easter and Pasach to all.